A couple of interesting old Brit Military Snider rifles, both of these have been rebarrelled to see what sort of accuracy potential we could get out of the old ladies. One has a Pac-Nor .585 1:18 twist barrel fitted, the other is in our own black powder wildcat 577-450 GUNWORKS, which is not the 577/450 martini, but rather a necked down version of the .577 Snider, using Bertrum brass and formed through our own made neckforming die. All reasonably easy to do. Pic below shows the rounds and both chamber reamers which where made in the GUNWORKS workshop. Accuracy has been very good, and of course both barrel profiles were turned to be an exact match for the woodwork, so the original barrels can go back on without any affect on originality. Keep watching as we do a 1880s NZ Army issue Remington Lee 43 Spanish to 45-70, again with no alteration to stock.
Interestingly the snider has a history of conversions, a large number where originally muzzle loaders, with a piece cut from the rear of the barrel and a shoe and breechblock put in its place, the nipple was reamed to accept a firing pin, and the cock (hammer) was twisted to hit the (now) centrally positioned firing pin.
Will get some pics up of one of our new Barnard GP .50 BMG rifles. We have a variety of build up options with the Barnard action, we have Laminated 1000yd benchrest stocks as well as McMillian Big Macs, we are currently using Gunworks Vulcan barrels, bedding on Titanium Devcon, and using our own Rem 700 style recoil lug, as we find any attempt to block the action, results in a weak stock or an oversized stock, neither is desireable. Accuracy is great, under 1" at 100m on centres.
Good stocks of Lapua 750gn, Hornady a-max 750gn, and a local 750gn Hollow Point projectiles.
Long range enthusiasts should give some thought to the .50 BMG, build price is reasonable $9K or so, ammo easily reloaded, projectile BC is in the .9s and better, velocities out of our 34-36" is great. While we are certainly fans of the .338 Lapua, we own two and have built plenty more, but at the end of the day as the V8 boys say 'there is no replacement for displacement", .50BMG has that in spades!
Feb 6th is NZ's Waitangi Day, a couple of us go over to O'Kains Bay on the Peninsula where around 2-3000 people attend a day out checking out early NZ history, Waka launching and paddling, eating a bit of Kai out of the hangi and generally have a relaxed time.
We run a Musket stand to help raise funds for the museum, where for five bucks you get two shots out of a Brown Bess or a Sergeants short pattern .577. If you hit the target (our aiming mark gets progressively smaller as the day goes on!) you get your money back, or the option of donating your winnings back to the O'Kains bay Museum which has some very rare early maori artifacts, one of the waka is infact an original from the 1800s.
Anyway, everyone has a lot of fun, and a large number of people who have never even fired a gun before get a chance to fire a (repro) version of a Capt Cook's flintlock or a Land Wars Pattern percussion rifle.
Every hour on the hour we fire a blackpowder blank charge out of our own cast minature cannon similar to Capt Cooks, we like to get well clear, as fast as our little legs will carry us, see the video below to see how fast we can run!!!
Try not to be offended by the sight of JTs exceptionally form fitting pixie-pants, he was banned from wearing them that morning, but he must have sneaked then back on again while we weren't watching!!
Pic here of two .338 Lapua Magnum conversions from the Gunworks workshop, the Sako TRG (S) or M995 (was .270 Win) lends itself to the conversion as the mag and bolt are big enough for the cartridge, bolt face and extractor needs to be machined, approx cost with muzzle brake and barrel runs around $1000 plus gst
Note the Schmidt & Bender PMII has to be turned over and the caps repositioned to allow the big .338 lapua case to be ejected, otherwise they hit the windage drum and fall back into the feedway.
The Ruger No1 uses a factory ruger .416 Rigby extractor to ensure reliable function, not worth trying to alter the original extractor arm in my view
An interesting take on the problem of getting a subsonic bullet to expand and create a good size wound channel (very difficult with a conventional bullet). This one is effectively pre split with a slitting saw and what you see here is the result of firing into a small container of water. Nice!
